The Choice
by Reincarnated Poet
Summary: Oliver Queen has been given choices all of his life. He's never known the weight of decision though, never known that his words could change lives. The first time he learns is on the Island, with a gun in his face and Ivo asking him to choose. AU
1. Chapter 1

AN: This is sort of an idea that I had after re-watching season one on Netflix. This choice, the symmetry of it later, the agony that Slade and Oliver go through after Shado...it is all very painful, and it sparked the what-if AU monster in my mind. This can be a stand alone, but I kind of want to build upon it and take it back off the island, through the show. Let me know your thoughts.

The Choice

Oliver sat in the mud, hands bound behind his back, long greasy, blonde hair hanging in his eyes. A feeling of hopelessness sat in his gut as he stared forward, deaf and dumb and blind to all the world except for the woman in front of him. She lay in the same mud he did, body limp and lifeless from the bullet that had ripped through her smooth forehead, shattered the beautiful mind beneath her skull, and out the back of her head.

Lifeless eyes stared back at him, challenging, accusing, _thanking._

He'd had the choice. It had been placed squarely on his shoulders by Ivo. By Ivoand his vendetta and his gun. Mostly, it was that gun. It hadn't ever occurred to Oliver Queen, playboy, alcoholic and irresponsible youth, to marvel over the wonder of inanimate objects. Now that he'd seen it, he recognized the potential there, in a hunk of metal and engineering. For the first time in his life, he saw behind the superficial.

It was a pity it was already too late.

Vaguely, he was aware of people dying around him. Of anger and shouting and wrath. It didn't much matter, because Oliver had already laid death on the shoulders of someone that he loved, on someone that meant more to him than just another face. More than the superficial. His fault. His fault. His fault. So much was already his fault. Too much. It crippled him.

Before the Island, before Lian Yu, he might have made such a choice without flinching. Without the darkness and the gun in his face and the knowledge that between the two, there was no good option, he might have pointed a finger indiscriminately. Sara Lance. Beautiful. Vapid. Shallow. Perfectly imperfect because she was anything but Laurel. Shado. Beautiful. Intelligent. A survivor. Perfectly imperfect because she was half of Oliver's world. The only half that had been left after Slade. After Oliver had been too slow, too inexperienced, to save him. The Mirakuru had failed, but Oliver had failed first. What choice was that, really? He'd already lost half of his world. Was the other half so important? Could he survive without that half?

"Kid." The voice was familiar, vague on the corner of his mind and memory. That voice was gone, dead and lost to him. "Oliver."

He couldn't take his eyes off of the body. He owed that to her, to the memory of her, to what she had been. He couldn't-

Except there were dark eyes in front of him, staring into his and whispering his name. A delicate hand was against his cheek, drawing him back from the memory of a beautiful woman and how he'd wronged her, how he'd damned her. Those eyes softened, and she whispered something to someone behind him. Strong hands came down on either of his shoulders, squeezing in a way that was both painful and reassuring. That pressure became a little too much, and he winced, biting into his tongue. The pain was welcome. He deserved it. The moment it became cathartic, those sharp brown eyes cut to whoever was behind him, and the pressure slackened off immediately, the hands disappearing from his skin as if burned. Maybe he did burn them. Maybe whatever was dark and evil in his soul had leached out through his skin and scalded the palms.

"Oliver?" the woman whispered, her hands never leaving his cheeks, his neck, comforting and drawing him away from the memory of the dead woman.

"I killed her," he whispered. With the words, the burning at his eyes ran in little streaks down his face where it was soothed away by softly questing thumbs.

"No," she said firmly, shushing him. A firmly drawn mouth dismissed his concern, his self-damning. She shook him slightly. "No."

"I did," he repeated, stronger this time. "It was you or her, and I couldn't...Slade's already gone, and if he's gone, there's no point if...I killed her." He recognized the stinging lines and hot tracks on his face as tears then, and she kept rubbing them away, hiding the evidence of his weakness.

"No, Oliver," she whispered, but those knowing eyes weren't on him anymore, they were over his shoulder, speaking without moving her lips. The presence at his back appeared again, and those hands were so very careful when they settled again, one on his shoulder and the other beside him. A large body slid down beside him, roughly jostling despite the apparent care.

Oliver had seen a gorilla once at the zoo. It was giant, powerful with dexterous fingers. A child had fallen in from an overhead walk, landing in the watering hole. The animal had saved the toddler from drowning and held it in those powerful hands. The infant had been extracted bruised with a broken arm, but it had been taken alive. Oliver remembered, even as a child, thinking that the gorilla had tried so very hard to hold the toddler with care. It had simply been too strong. The man settling next to him moved with similar hesitance.

"It's not your fault, kid," the man said. The familiar accent and cadence, the gargled-with-gravel sound belonged to a man that was dead and cooling, and it took that man jostling him again, forcing his head up with too powerful hands, to realize.

"Slade," Oliver said on an exhale, too exhausted to say it properly. The man had been dead. His pulse had stilled beneath shaking fingertips, and everything that had been the Aussie had gone. The Mirakuru had failed, and yet, there he sat, alive and well, if not thunderous. Except, Slade always looked angry. Now was no exception.

"Yeah, kid," Slade said, his hands bruising against Oliver's jaw, anchoring him in place until realization slowly dawned on Oliver. A groping, grasping hand came up and gripped Slade's wrist.

"I killed her, Slade," Oliver said, squeezing firmly.

"No, kid," Slade said, and just like that, Oliver's entire frame melted. His head fell forward, and Slade released him as if burned. Chin hit chest, and his hands tangled in his hair. Slade never lied to him. Slade demanded the truth, demanded he speak it and be told it. He never spared Oliver's feelings and he blamed him for more than was truly his fault. If he said that Oliver didn't kill her...

"Ivo killed her, Oliver," the woman said, running delicate fingers against his thighs, soothing, grounding. "He gave you a choice, and you lost either way." The woman paused, drawing a deep, steadying breath, as if the next words needed more strength than she had. "I am sorry for your loss. I know you cared for her."

"She was my fault," Oliver said to his chest, and Slade's grunt of annoyance had him speaking again. "The island, I mean. She wouldn't have been here." He looked up then, over the woman's shoulder to her.

She lay there, light eyes closed, blonde hair falling to obscure the bullet wound that ended her life. She looked nothing like Sara Lance in that moment, nothing like the woman that he'd taken on the Gambit so long ago. Nothing like her sister or her father or even of her mother.

"Everyone makes their own choices, Oliver," Shado said, her knowing face staring at him, capturing his attention and putting herself between Oliver and Sara, so he couldn't see her.

"I made a choice," he said, but there was none of the agony in his tone, none of the indecision. "It was...it was the best I could..."

"We'll talk about it later, kid. For now, we've got to get out of here." Slade pulled him easily to his feet with only an arm around his shoulders. Later, they would talk about the strength in the man that had always been present but was now almost uncontrolled. Later, they would talk about the darkness in Shado's eyes, about the way she looked at Sara as they laid her to rest beneath the ground quickly. They would talk about Oliver's sense of responsibility, about begging for Fryers to kill him instead of the other two. That would all come later, though.


	2. Chapter 2

**The Choice: Chapter Two**

If Slade had to describe Oliver in one word, it would be focused. Since Sara, he'd spent his days training while Slade and Shado licked their wounds and made plans for the Amazo, which had stayed docked the last two days. The easy smile of Oliver Queen had disappeared to be replaced with something that, if pressed, Slade would admit looked like his own grimace. It was...

It was unsettling, is what it was. Their planned attack on the Amazo was less than three hours away, and Oliver's single minded focus made even Slade consider putting off their plan. Yet, if they waited much longer, the tanker might set sail with or without their captain. Slade wasn't willing to miss yet another chance to get off the Island. Neither was Shado, which left them to quietly brood and watch their youngest.

"We take that tanker, we can have you home in a week, Kid," Slade said, running a whet stone down the edge of his blade. It was already pristine, but he had to have something to do with his hands. Since the Mirakuru, he had to stay occupied or he started to feel agitated. They'd discovered that first night that an agitated Slade Wilson on Mirakuru was dangerous to everyone when he'd put his fist through the wall of the fuselage. Since, Shado had taken over Oliver's hand to hand training, and Slade had been settled to a place on the floor, sharpening weapons and re-learning his own strength and self control. He'd gotten better of the last day, and he'd almost considered joining them in training. He watched as Shado flipped Oliver over her shoulder, sending the young man rolling to his feet. His counter was quick and efficient, and it clipped the tip of her ear as she dodged.

The whet stone crumbled in his hand. It was a learning process.

Shado's eyes darted from Oliver to Slade and back again quickly.

"I'm not going home," Oliver said simply, throwing his elbow forward, catching Shado off guard, watching the pair of them. Slade watched them wrestle for a moment before she got the upper hand and pinned the kid to the ground, his arm twisted behind his back.

"Don't be an idiot," she hissed at the back of his head. Oliver struggled against the hold a moment before giving up and tapping the ground with his hand. Shado held him there a moment longer, wrenching his arm to the point of near damage and releasing him.

"Why aren't you going home, kid?" Slade asked, but he already knew the answer. He'd seen it that night, when the boy had sat in the mud, watching a dead woman cool. It was the look of a man that had given away all that he was, had lost it all and had found himself adrift. It was a dangerous look, one that Slade had seen in the eyes of Billy Wintergreen back before they'd been captured. It made Slade itchy.

"Kid?" Not as itchy as the silence, though.

"You will get yourself killed," Shado snapped, pushing away from her captive and stalking toward the door. "I will hunt. You will eat. We will take the Amazo, and you will go home." She spoke so succinctly that Slade thought she might make it so by her will alone. Slade didn't doubt her, much.

"She's right, kid." He felt like talking. He felt like doing a lot of things, things that he didn't do in the before, back before he'd died and come back stronger, dangerous. He felt like living.

"No, she's not Slade." Oliver turned toward him, fixing him with a stare that Slade wished he didn't recognize. "You know she's not. When this is all over, are you going to find Joe? Be a father?" The anger that welled up in his gut a the words was nearly blinding, and when he could see again, Slade found himself standing, ten paces from where he'd been with one arm stretched out in front of him, pinning the kid to the wall of the fuselage by his neck.

Oliver's face was red, arms at his sides and fists clenched against the metal, as if he was making himself stay still, not struggle. As if he was welcoming something he body tried to revolt again. Slade dropped his hand as if burned, staring at his palm and Oliver's neck and back again.

"Jesus, Kid-"

"It's alright," Oliver said, and his voice came out hoarse, so very reminiscent of Slade's own when he was choked about something or another.

"No it's-"

"We need that, Slade," Oliver said, stepping forward and into the ASIS agent's space. "We need that anger; we need your strength. I'm sorry that it's you. I'm sorry that you're the one that has to live with it, but we need it." Slade felt himself nodding, and the pair slowly settled themselves back into the corner, Slade taking up his weapon again, testing the edge and polishing. He'd not realized until that moment how easily he could have killed the kid instead of choked him. The blade could have been in his hand. Except, thinking on it, he remembered some sliver of his brain dropping the sword, making the decision to set it aside as the anger washed over him.

Baby steps.

Shado came back less than thirty minutes later, and they ate the pheasant she'd shot down to bones and feathers. The sun was setting, and there was work to be done.

Slade had to admit that he loved the feeling of flying. Shado was strapped in with him, and the Kid was swimming toward the Amazo. There had been a discussion about who would ride along with Slade and who would swim, but Oliver had won in the end, saying that if he couldn't make the swim, the other two could survive on their own. Even Shado had to admit that should Slade or herself be unable to swim the distance, the other two might end up dead for lack of back up.

It left a bad taste in his mouth, though, knowing that they were leaving the kid on his own. The last time they'd separated, they'd been bombed and Oliver had ended up a hostage. Then there was the time Slade didn't like to think about, the time that could have ended with Shado or Oliver dead. They'd spoken about it that night, quiet and hushed by the flickering light of a campfire outside the fuselage.

 _"He can't keep up like this," Shado whispered, watching Oliver's back as the kid sat in front of the fire. He'd stayed still since Slade had guided him to the ground an hour prior._

 _"He'll come around," Slade said, though the look in the kid's eye scared him more than he'd like to admit. He imagined it was much like the look in his own. The words echoed in Slade's mind. He'd been dead. He'd been gone. He'd been needed, and yet..._

 _"It's not your fault either," Shado said simply, and it was her hand on his that convinced him. She had a way of speaking, of convincing without words, that put him at ease. "Ivo didn't leave him a choice."_

 _"Tough to hear," Slade said. "Tough to accept that you saved the life of another woman instead of your girlfriend."_

 _"He asked Ivo to kill him," Shado said softly. "He can't be more than twenty-five." The look in her eye, the almost mothering glance that she sent the kid, made something dark in Slade's stomach roil until she turned that concern to Slade himself. He felt it's warmth as her hand left his and danced up and down his arm._

 _"He's a brave kid," Slade said simply. "Stupid but brave. I'll talk to him."_

 _Talking to him turned into sullenly sitting around the fire, each of them licking their own wounds. Slade has been dead. Oliver had left Sara to die. Shado had lived only because someone else had died. It was a heavy silence._

 _"It's not your fault, Kid," Slade said into the fire more than to Oliver. The Queen scion shrugged one shoulder, as if he was brushing off the comment. "You put yourself between the people you love and danger. That's bravery, Kid .Don't let anyone tell you different." He did turn to Oliver at that, fixing him with the weight of his stare until the younger man looked up and nodded._

 _"I didn't think," Oliver said simply. "I just...You were gone, and I couldn't...I couldn't have failed you twice." The silence that fell after that was daunting; no one acknowledged the meaning of those words. "You remember, right?" Oliver said suddenly, head snapping up and fixing Slade with a heavy stare. "You remember what you promised, if I don't make it off this island."_

 _"I remember, Oliver," Slade said, tossing a mangled branch into the fire. He'd spent the better part of their silences breaking branches by hand and tossing them into the blaze. It was cathartic, and it let him gauge his new strength. "If I don't, you'll do the same." Oliver nodded once, and they fell silent. Shado slept as she always did, still and probably more fitfully than either of the two men. Slade stayed awake, the urge to live, do, be far stronger now than it had been before the Mirakuru. It was the only reason he knew that Oliver didn't sleep._

 _The young man fled the fuselage the moment he thought the other two were asleep, and Slade found him a short distance off, staring out at the open ocean from a vantage point._

 _"Shado doesn't have anyone," Oliver said after a long silence. "You'll take care of her too, if I don't..."_

 _"Yeah, Kid," Slade said. "I'll take care of everyone you can't."_

 _"Thank you." The words were more laced with emotion than Slade had ever heard them. "We're brothers, Kid. Brothers stay together." Slade bumped him lightly with his shoulder, misjudging his own strength enough to nearly send the kid toppling off the rise. They chuckled into the darkness because there was nothing else to do but laugh or cry. Slade left him, doubling back on silent feet to keep watch. He couldn't sleep, after all, and you didn't leave a brother on a cliff._

The tanker went almost easily with the three of them, and it was only after, when they were putting out fires and making sure the crew and captives were in line that it happened.

The crack of a gunshot.

The choked cry of a man as a bullet ripped through his chest.

A half stuttered step backward.

The sound of a body hitting water.

Slade would not remember anything but rage until the next morning, when he was treading water as the sun came up and Shado sat beside him in the water atop a life boat. She'd been in the water too, if her clothes were any indication. Her eyes were red-rimmed, and she kept muttering in low tones, calming tones, even as she stared at the rising sun.

"He's gone, Slade. He's gone. We can't stay here. The tanker leaves at sunrise. He's gone."

And he was gone. So very gone and lost to him that Slade screamed, thrashing in the water for several seconds that felt like a tantrum and less like grief. The grief would come later, when he was standing on the deck of the Amazo, the bastard that had ended the life of his brother dead and cold in front of him, ripped into so many pieces that it would take a shovel to get him off the deck. The Bratva man that had helped him take control was standing beside him, a look in his eye of a job well done. Shado had fled below deck when the screaming stopped.

The Amazo left harbor at mid morning, just as Oliver Queen turned away from the shore, a frown on his face and blood running from a still open shoulder wound.


	3. Chapter 3

AN: We're off the map, Jack. Here there be monsters and AU. Also, Slade Wilson is going to be a struggle for me, as I'm trying to resolve pre-Mirakuru Slade Wilson and post-Mirakuru Slade Wilson all the while trying to keep him a touch unhinged but not as such because he's still got Shado.

 **The Choice: Chapter Three**

Slade sighed, running a hand through his hair as he sat in the little Toyota that they'd picked up for a steal in Coast City. The money from the Amazo had far exceeded any costs Shado and Slade had needed for the better part of the three weeks since Lian Yu, but Shado refused to over spend. They could have driven off of a new car lot with something sleek and shining, and yet, the little red rust bucket Toyota truck had spoken to both of them.

He'd never be able to deny her anything, not after the Island, the Amazo, Oliver. Not after the apartment they'd rented yesterday in the Glades. Not after her support and the way she could still look him in the eye despite the fact that they'd spent a day stalking his own son, his son that had a new family. His son who laughed and smiled as he played on a jungle gym and was swept up by a familiar mother and an unfamiliar father.

She'd held his hand despite the strength in him, and hours later, he splinted the broken fingers he'd made.

It had taken them both the better part of two days to muster the courage to face the Queen family, to swallow down the pain in their own hearts and take the turn up the long Queen driveway. Slade had parked the truck on the far side of the security fence, awaiting the guard that was glaringly missing. A security threat. Something to fix. His mind had been doing that since they'd made land. He had promises to keep, so many promises, and if he was any man, he'd see Oliver's family safe.

"Come on," Shado said, sliding from the truck and slipping up and over the fence with a cat's grace. Slade followed, minus the silent skill and landed on the pavement beyond with a heavy thud of boot on blacktop. They'd changed clothes time and time again since they'd first made land, but each time, he found himself making selections based on what was of use. Cargo pants. A tank top beneath a button up beneath a jacket. Layers. Comfortable fabric that breathed. The leather jacket had been Shado's insistence. It would protect against the rain, she said. Neither of them acknowledged that now, off the Island, there was no need for such protection.

"What are we going to tell them," Slade asked as they neared the house. One of the guards was rounding the corner of the home, coming at them with a hand behind his back that begged trouble. "It's been nearly a year and a half?"

"We tell them the truth," Shado said softly. She'd lost some of her sharpness since the Island, some of the danger in her stance, but Slade could see it in her just as he had before. As the guard approached, she put herself between Slade and the man, more in defense of the guard than Slade. He smiled softly at her. It had been nearly a week since he'd had a real incident. He was learning. This was too important not to stay in control.

"Did the gate guard let you through?" the man asked, half turned sideways and on edge.

"No one was there, so we let ourselves in," Shado said. "We have a message for the Queen family, news about their son."

"Oliver Queen has been missing for the last year, the Queen family has suffered enough with his loss." The guard was a good man, Slade knew. He had defense in his eyes, care and caution, but the annoyance in his stomach was growing the longer they stood on the lawn.

"We know," Slade said, stepping forward. "He's been on an island, shipwrecked. We knew him. We want to pass on his words." Slade had spoken before he even knew what he was going to say, but the quet smile Shado gave him let him know he'd not stepped out of line. He'd taken to looking to her lately, to assure he was controlled, as a barometer of sorts. The guard faltered, his hand falling from the gun at his back to his side.

"Mrs. Queen is inside, but Mr. Steel and Ms. Queen aren't on the premises. I can show you to the parlor, and when they arrive, I can send them in." The man's name was Todd, and he lead them through an entrance way to a small parlor with chairs with upholstery so beautiful that Slade almost didn't want to sit on them. Todd told them he would wait to contact Ms. Queen-Moira, he told them-until the others were present, and it was only Shado that thought to speak as the man was leaving.

"There was a woman, Laurel," she said. "Her sister was on the island."

"I'll call Mr. Lance and his daughter," Todd said, disappearing out the door.

"Talk about a silver spoon," Slade said several long minutes later. They'd sat in silence, Shado studying the grain of the table in front of them, Slade trying not to look at anything so closely. "I should have given him more shit."

"Don't talk like that while we're here," Shado said softly. Slade dealt with mourning the dead by pretending it didn't touch him, but doing things, acts, that could speak for his grief. His words were harsh, brash, and often inconsiderate to the dead. Oliver's parents wouldn't understand the pain. They wouldn't understand his way.

"I know," he said, turning away and staring out a window. It had only been thirty minutes when a squad car pulled up the drive, lights going and a middle aged man ran from the driver's seat, a woman trailing behind him. The crotch rocket that shot up the drive a few moments later nearly took her out as it skittered to a stop.

"Where is she?! Where's my daughter?" The man's panicked voice echoed down the hall. and Slade watched Shado drop her head into her hands.

"Sara?" A young woman called, and in a moment, there was beautiful Laurel Lance, standing in the door. Slade would recognize her anywhere from that damned picture. The kid had worn it out, babbled about her in the small hours of the night, when neither of them could sleep. Shado sprang up from her seat, turning and taking a few steps toward her. Slade realized in the next moment that it would be her that did most of the telling. His throat has seized, failed him, and as he tried to work up the words to greet the woman, his voice rebelled.

"You must be Laurel," Shado said, stepping up beside Slade and running a hand down his arm, soothing. If she didn't know him, no one ever would. "Your picture didn't do you justice."

"Sara?" she repeated, and in a moment, her father was at her back, eyes wide and searching.

"Please, sit down, Mr. Lance. Mr. Steele and Thea are only five minutes out. I'm sure out guests would prefer to tell their story only once." Slade didn't believe in God, but he was sure, if he existed, Todd had more than earned his place beside him.

"Come on, honey," Mr. Lance said, leading Laurel to sit down on the small couch across from where Shado had perched. Shado sat across from them again, leaving Slade to prowl around at her back, glancing from window to window. It wasn't long after that a young man joined them, hands rubbing nervously on his jeans and a bike helmet beneath his arm.

"Ollie?" he asked, looking to Laurel, who only shook her head in confusion and went back to wringing the edge of her shirt between her hands. Mr. Lance opened and closed his mouth several times, as if trying to work up the nerve to ask before the Queens arrived. Slade knew that indecision. He'd almost not wanted to see Joe, to know if he was healthy or happy. Good news would be freedom, bad would cripple.

"That's got to be the kid's sister," Slade said, turning from the window where a black man was leading a young girl up the drive. Shado slipped over the back of the couch without even touching the cushions and glanced. They did favor each other, around the eyes, the attitude. The way the girl nearly vibrated with energy and barely contained excitement. "Jesus, she can't be sixteen, Shado."

"It's alright," she whispered, running her hand from the base of his neck to the bottom of his spine. Slade turned away from the window and leaned against the back of the couch where Shado had sat. She took his lead and settled once again in the cushions, straight back the only thing giving away her discomfort.

They needn't wait long because no sooner had Shado settled at the young man start up pacing behind the sofa, did the tall gentleman lead the young girl and an older woman into the room. Todd stood in the doorway, a silent guard in case Shado and Slade not offer the information they claimed to have.

"Hello, I'm Mr. Steele, this is Moira Queen, Oliver's mother." Mr. Steele was a strong man, made up on the stuff he was named after. Slade liked him well enough, about as well as he liked anyone, as he reached out and shook his hand. Shado was treated to similar manners, though Slade could tell the gentleman in him slacked his grip.

"Mrs. Queen," Shado said, bowing slightly at the neck. "We have news of your son." She paused slightly and turned to Mr. Lance. "And your daughter."

"Please, please," Moira said, gesturing toward their seats. Shado took hers again, though Slade stayed at her back, uncomfortable with the idea of sitting. He almost needed her between him and the rest of the world.

"The things we have to tell you will be difficult to hear," Shado said softly, and Slade was pleased that Shado was the one telling Oliver's story. He didn't have the finesse to stare down a grieving mother and tell her that her son was dead. That it was his fault for not paying close enough attention, that one of their prisoners had a gun. That Slade had failed yet-

"Slade, come sit down," Shado said softly. He shook himself form his mind, finding shadow turned to face him over the back of the sofa. His hands had fisted against the beautiful dark trim, cracking it beneath his fingers.

"Sorry," he muttered, rounding the couch to sit beside her, let her take one of his hands and control his strength. Walter muttered something along the lines of forgiveness, and Slade nodded at him.

"Is my daughter alive?" Mr. Lance asked, sitting forward, elbows on his knees. He watched Shado's face carefully for a long moment before the reality of what he saw there sunk in.

"Sara did not survive the island," Shado said softly. "Neither did Oliver." Slade ignored what follows, the intake of breaths, the angry explosion from Mr. Lance, every little sound that came, until a question, a quiet little question caught in his ears.

"What happened on the island?" Thea Queen had none of her brother's bluster in that moment, none of his smile or even the iron core of him that Slade had seen in those last days. She did have his gentleness though, and at little more than sixteen, she dried her eyes enough to ask how her brother had lived. Not how he died. Not how Slade and Shado had failed him, but how they came together, how they struggled, and survived and lived.

"Thea, darling, we don't-"

"Oliver asked me to come tell his family about the Island, if he didn't make it. I intend to keep that promise and honor my brother's last request of me," Slade said, voice firm as he stared down Moira Queen. "If you don't want to hear it, if you don't have the stomach for it, leave, but I'll tell that little girl whatever she wants to know."

"Well, I don't have to listen to it," Mr. Lance said, angry and hurting, as he stood. Laurel followed, sweet perfect Laurel, who Oliver had pined for, followed her father without thought to the man that had died loving her. Slade watched her go with a sort of jealous anger in his stomach. Oliver had held himself from Shado to honor Laurel's memory. He had agonized over the woman in the small hours of the morning, and yet, she fled without knowing his story, without hearing how he'd grown.

"If you want, we can tell you what happened," Shado said softly. "But it is not an easy place, Lian Yu. There is not much happiness." The young man that had rode in on the bike hesitated behind the other sofa, paced back and forth twice before he settled down on the couch where Lance and Laurel had been. Tommy, Slade finally realized. Tommy Merlyn. Oliver had spoken of the man a few times, about his brother that had been left behind, about a man that Oliver missed like a limb. Slade could see that same pain there, still new and fresh at the memory.

"Moira?" Walter asked, a hand on the small of her back. Slade could see the closeness there, the yet to blossom relationship. Oliver wouldn't have approved, not with his father's death so sharp on his memory, but Slade couldn't fault the family for wanting to move forward.

"I'll hear it," she said softly before clenching her jaw and straightening her back. There was strength in her too, the same strength that Slade learned was in Oliver.

"Lian Yu was used by the Chinese as a prison," Shado said, drawing on what memory she had of the island's history. "My father was imprisoned there falsely, a scapegoat for the government's failures. Some time ago, ASIS, an Australian Special Services group, endeavored to free him from the island. They sent a two man team: Slade Wilson and Billy Wintergreen."

"I'm Slade Wilson," Slade heard himself saying. "And when we landed on Lian Yu, we found that we weren't alone there. A mercenary group had been sent in months prior, their plan to use the island as a base to start a military coo against the Chinese government. My partner and I were captured, and he turned on me." Slade locked his jaw, unwilling to speak further on that still aching time when Billy had tortured him. "I escaped, and several months later, I heard an explosion late at night, during a storm. I watched a cruiser sink into the darkness."

"The Queen's Gambit," Thea said softly, tears in her eyes. "My brother made it to the island? How?" She worked herself up, angry and demanding.

"I don't know," Shado lied. They'd heard the story in the small hours of the night when they had nothing to do but speak. "But my father found him not long after, and they lived together for a time, until my father was captured by Fyers." She spat the name violently enough that Slade reached out for her, settling her with a hand against her shoulder. "Fyers used him, and in the end, killed him."

"Yao Fei, Shado's father, sent Oliver to find me, gave him my location by faking his death. When he found my fuselage, he was a kid. I didn't think he'd live another day. I didn't know how he'd even survived the island that first six months, but he learned. I taught him. When we had the chance to get off the island, he wouldn't leave without Yao Fei; he said he owed him. When he went back for him, everything went wrong. We missed out window, but we found out why he'd betrayed us, why he'd gone with Fyers."

"I was kidnapped to use as leverage against my father, brought to Lian Yu and kept drugged. Oliver and Slade saved me, and later, when Fyers killed my father, we saved each other." She paused, drawing a long breath. "We killed Fyers, and for a little while, a few months, we were as happy as we ever were on the island."

Slade smiled at the memory of those months, the time between Fyers demise and the Amazo coming to Lian Yu.

"Kid got better, didn't he?" Slade asked, knowing that a smile had pulled up the corner of his mouth. Shado echoed his smile.

"He did." Shado turned back toward the Queen family and Tommy. "Slade and I trained Oliver physically. How to survive. How to shoot a bow. Feed himself. Defend himself."

"Senchun," Slade said softly.

"How to survive," Shado agreed. "A tanker came to the harbor one day, and their men set off our proximity alarm. They were looking for an old Japanese submarine and the serum they carried. Oliver was captured, and on the tanker, he found Sara Lance. Slade and I stormed the tanker not long after, rescuing Oliver and Sara while their leader was on the island, searching for the missing submarine crew."

"Sara was alive..." Tommy muttered quietly, his eyes flickering to the window, to where the police cruiser had been.

"She would have lived, if I had died," Shado said softly.

"That's not true," Slade cut in, nudging her more firmly than necessary on the shoulder. "I failed you, and Ivo didn't die painfully enough."

"What happened?" Mr. Steele cut in, disrupting their moment.

"What happened to my son?" Moira said, continuing his question. "I don't care about this man or Sara Lance. I want to know what happened to my boy."

"To know what happened to Oliver, you have to know what happened there," Shado said.

"You should honor your son, hear about his victories. Celebrate how he lived, and honor how he died," Slade said. "He asked me to take care of you, to find you. I promised him I would, but I also promised him I'd make sure you knew what happened."

"I want to know," Thea said, banishing the thought of jumping to the end of their story.

"I was hurt, dying," Slade said, startling Shado by taking over the story here. "The crew of the Amazo were looking for a serum made by the Japanese government during World War II. It was said to have the ability to make super soldiers, and Shado and Oliver didn't know what else to do. They injected me with the serum, but I died despite it. When I woke, the serum in my veins, I was confused. I only caught up to them as Ivo made Oliver choose."

"Choose?" Tommy asked, his forehead wrinkling in confusion.

"Sara Lance or myself," Shado said softly, head bowed. "We were bound, all of us. Oliver was to choose who lived and who died. Instead, he asked to be killed instead, to die so that we could live." A sob broke her story, and Shado looked up, Moira Queen in front of her hand over her mouth and crying.

"Your son was a brave man," Slade said. "But Ivo was a coward. He pointed the gun at Shado, and Oliver jumped in front of her. He shot Sara instead. By the time I got there, she was dead."

"The serum, the Mirakuru, worked," Shado said. "It saved Slade's life, but it changed him, made him stronger, strong enough to save us."

"We took the Amazo two days later. With Ivo and his men gone, it was a handful of crew and the prisoners in the hold," Slade said. "It was easy, too easy. After it was over, we were on deck when Oliver was shot. One of the crew had gotten hold of a hand gun, small thing. I saw him go over the side. We looked through the night and into the next day, but Oliver was gone."

"We're sorry for your loss," Shado said quietly. Slade watched Moira sob into Walter's shoulder. The woman was grieving, but as he watched her, he couldn't help but think she had a heavier load on her shoulders than grief. The girl, Thea, cried silently, leaning against Tommy's side. The young man held her, firm arm around her shoulders and gentling her.

"There's no way he could have survived?" Walter asked.

"Slade was in the water through the night and into the next morning. If he had come up, we'd have seen him."

"He couldn't have gotten back to the shore?" Tommy asked.

"I shouted for him, but he didn't respond. Tide was going out. If anything it would have taken him out to sea. You don't survive that unconscious. If he was awake, we would have heard him." Slade ducked his head and ran his hands through his hair. He should have gone back to the island, should have circled the bay, but Shado was right. If Oliver was unconscious, the sea would have pulled him out. If he was awake, alive, he'd have called out for help.

"Thank you," Walter said after several long minutes. "I appreciate you bringing the news to us in person. The question has been hanging over the Queen family for far too long." Slade felt Shado nod even as he closed his eyes. He didn't deserve thanks. It was his job to see the kid survive the island, his job. That bullet would have been little more than a nuisance to Slade, with his armor and the Mirakuru. He could have taken that bullet and lived to rip the man apart.

"We will be staying in town for a while," Shado said. "Oliver asked that we keep an eye on his family in the event that he couldn't."

"We appreciate the gesture," Walter said, and Slade rose with Shado's lead. Walking through the gate was almost too easy given the emotional anguish that had been retelling the island, but walk through it they did. They would walk through a lot of things for the next three years, so many things.

Slade would be grateful for her when he learned of his wife and son's passing in a car accident. She would be grateful for him later, when they tried to start their own family and she lost their first and only child. He was be grateful shortly after, when he lost the site in his right eye after someone caught a lucky blow in a back alley bar fight and he nearly killed the man. She would be grateful for him when she learned of her mother's passing.

They would be grateful for each other three years later, when Slade turned on the television early on a Sunday morning to the image of Oliver Queen being guided off of a plane in Starling City.


	4. Chapter 4

AN: I'm having fun writing this, and to be honest, my angst levels are getting maxed out, haha. This chapter is a big old pain fest that was simultaneously fun and terrible to write. We're going to see some Mirakuru Slade feels, Shado being the fearless badass with a heart of gold that she is and Oliver Queen with the guilt of Sara's death on his shoulders instead of Shado's. A feels chapter, if I've ever written one, and congruent with the start of the show. I also, while writing this, realized that I have to make a decision as far as Oliver's path is concerned. Sara's dead. Helena is someone I don't plan on writing in in quiet the same way as she was in the original, and Laurel Lance is not, in my mind at least, where Oliver fits. Also, I'm probably the only person who things this, but I don't think he and Felicity work either. I know. I know. BUT that left me with this niggling little thought that maaaybe I'm going to work in a bit of a triangle, slowly...so very slowly, but you can start to see it here, I think.

 **The Choice: Chapter Four**

It had been an early morning. Shado woke first, a nightmare waking her for a change instead of him. They'd been trading them back and forth for the better part of the last three years, and each time Shado woke sweaty and panting, he wished that he could take her pain inside of him. His dreams were easier than hers. His were violent.

Usually, it was Billy, alive and coming for him and Shado, for revenge for the crime of killing him. On the island, rage and anger had left no room to regret the death of his brother-in-arms. After, well, after he'd lost so much that he caught himself wondering if there had been a way to reach his friend. The thoughts never lasted long because eventually, the good thoughts lead to the bad and he was remembering the scars on the kid's torso that had been brought on by Billy Wintergreen. Remembering his own scars.

Sometimes it was Joe, all grown up and asking him why he got to live while Joe died little more than a child. Except Joe was never his Joe. Joe was always a tall man, bulky and armed with a blade very similar to Slade's own. He had none of his father's gravel to his voice and none of his mother's softness. Still, those were the worst memories, as his son cut off pieces of him for each day that he'd lived.

Most nights, if it wasn't Billy, it was the Kid. Sometimes he was drowning, too wounded to swim. Sometimes he washed up on the shore and bled out in the sun, eyes locked on the Amazo as it sailed away. The worst of the dreams was the one where Oliver lived, survived the bullet wound and sat on the island, was still on the island, wondering what he'd done to deserve being abandoned. Those always ended with an arrow flying at his head.

Slade's nightmares were always violent.

Shado's were painful.

She didn't like to talk about them, but lately, they were of Lian Yu. Sometimes it was her father. Slade could tell because her tears stopped more quickly, disappeared to a wry smile and a feeling of catharsis. Occasionally, it was her mother, driven to her grave with worry and fear and shame.

Lately, it had been an echo of Slade's own. Oliver on the island. Oliver other places, doing terrible things. Sometimes, Slade thought maybe she was the one with the Mirakuru eating away at her mind. The worst was when she woke up silently, sitting up in the bed with sightless eyes crying until he woke at the chill she'd left in her place.

Last night had been one of those nights, and they'd spent the morning running laps in a city park and sparring hard enough that a rent-a-cop had stopped to ask Shado if she was alright. He didn't have the heart to tell him that if he'd wanted, Slade could have ripped her in half. Except Shado had taught him better. She'd forced him through the darkest parts of his life, spoken to a part of him that called for control and trained _him_.

The running was good. It got most of his energy out without destruction, and it left them both lean and ready for the world around them, a world that neither could admit wasn't dangerous anymore. Not for them. Never again.

It didn't matter though. What mattered was that she'd woken up in pain, and despite their morning run and sparring and a breakfast that should have clogged their arteries, she was still sad. A type of sad he hadn't seen on her in the time he'd known her.

They danced around each other until Slade couldn't stand the quiet and turned on the television, seeking out the Starling City News. The weather made them promises as he walked around the kitchen counter and poured another cup of coffee, eyes lazily watching the radar bringing in a storm. He'd made it back around the counter and to the middle of the small dining area in their apartment when the newscaster broke the monotony about rainfall.

Shado was somewhere behind him as the broadcast started, going about her morning in the living room, probably stretching after their run and spar. The scene was familiar, the airstrip with a private jet, several reporters pooled around the ladder. What Slade couldn't process, couldn't see, was the man walking down the ladder, flanked on either side by body guards.

"Just this morning, we received word that the missing billionaire hearth-throb of Starling City was found three days ago on an island off the coast of-"

"Oliver," Shado whispered from behind him, her steady presence at his back in a moment. His coffee mug shattered in his hand, the handle turning to little more than dust as the rest of it fell the floor, turning to little shards and sending hot coffee splashing over both of their feet.

"Kid," Slade echoed, the heart of him freezing up. He tried to make himself listen to the broadcast, to the story that he'd been taken off of a plane little more than thirty minutes ago and was being evaluated at Starling General for any injuries.

"Lian Yu," Shado said, his lips turning down in a hard line that made even Slade uncomfortable. It took his own heart a moment to catch up. Oliver Queen had been alive in the water or he'd have drowned. He'd been well enough to swim to shore. Well enough to survive.

"He was alive," Slade said, the words coming out a hoarse whisper, something that was broken and angry. "I looked for him, and he was alive!" He lashed out with his foot, catching the remnants of the mug and sending them skittering toward the wall like shrapnel.

"Easy," Shado said, her presence still at his back. "We'll talk to him-"

"Leave him!" Slade shouted, turning toward her, rage coloring his vision. Had it been anyone else there, trying to calm him, he'd have choked the life from their lungs. Never Shado though, and her answering glare, understanding but firm, calmed him enough so that when he lashed out, it was against the wall, the old plaster lathe falling in crumbling chunks to the ground. He'd be patching it for the better part of tomorrow, but he'd gotten good at restoring what he broke.

It was only later that night, as the promised storm was rolling in, that he let himself feel something more than anger. A painful little area in his chest throbbed and worried, and as the last of the sun disappeared behind clouds, he relented.

"Make sure he's okay."

Shado would not return for several hours, the look on her face so similar to after her nightmare that it terrified him.

 **-The Choice-**

Oliver stood beside the window, watching the city creep by at night. They'd told him his mother was there, his sister, that he'd had visitors, and yet...

He sighed, the breath pillowing against the window for a moment before disappearing. He'd not wanted to return to Starling, not really. There was too much sitting on his shoulders, on his mind, to want to return to his family, his friends, the people that knew him before. There was a lot he'd done since the Queen's Gambit went down, so much that he'd done that it was crippling.

"Oliver?" He sighed. There was no way to return to defend the city without returning to his mother. The woman had suffered enough, so he swallowed down the bile that rose in his throat and turned.

"Mom," he said. In a moment, she was hugging him, whispering things that he didn't really hear. It didn't matter. What mattered was getting out of the hospital, getting set up and starting on his father's mission of righting the wrongs he'd committed against the city. He'd spent so long on the strings of someone else's marionette that he wasn't sure he remembered how to go about human interaction anymore, that there was anything human left inside him. It didn't feel like it. The cold thing in his chest wasn't a heart, hadn't been in years. He let his mother baby him, draw him into her arms and back into the safety of home.

Home. When had anything last felt like home? The fuselage?

He lay down in his bed, uncomfortable at the softness, and instead, opted for the floor, unable to fall asleep until he'd cracked the windows open and the sounds of a storm lulled him to sleep.

He'd always been a light sleeper, but even he didn't hear the feather soft footsteps that crept into his room from the window, dripping water from delicate finger tips as they stretched out toward him. Damp fingers brushed the hair back from his sweat slicked forehead, pressing the shadow of a touch against his jawline. In his fever dream, he felt them, cool and comforting, before they disappeared and he was left in the world he'd built in the last three years.

Before his mother got too close and he woke up with his hand around her throat.

She comforted him in the fallout, instead of the other way around. He'd known the feel of fingers around his windpipe, known the strength that was required to cut off air was far less than he'd applied. He'd never known anything that made him panic more than air hunger. He'd shown her than, for a few seconds at least, and as the storm raged outside and he sat alone in the fallout, he wondered not for the first time why he'd come back at all.

Thea and his mother were safer without him. Safe and protected were two different things though, and Oliver had made enemies over the years. Enemies that might find out that Oliver was Oliver Queen, that he had something left to lose that hadn't been ripped away from his bones already. Ripped away from his soul.

It was a tattered thing, what was left in his chest, with burn holes and scars just like his body. His father was gone, a shot of lead passing through him first, a wound that had long ago scabbed over but still ached on occasion. Laurel and Tommy had gone on the island, sharp things that made him hurt so much that he ripped them both out of himself, their memories leaving holes where they'd been. Slade and Shado he'd watched sail away from him, more people he'd removed on purpose to avoid the pain later.

Everyone betrays you in the end, everyone. Slade had taught him that before Oliver knew what it meant. In the three years since he watched the Amazo sail away, the Bratva and Amanda Waller had burned it into his bones. He just hoped that he didn't teach his family.

The rest of the night passed without incident, mostly because he stayed awake, watching the world outside his window rage, the sky spitting lightning and rain. More than once, he thought he felt familiar eyes on him and turned toward the door, thinking maybe his mother had returned. Each time, he was left more and more uneasy at the knowledge that whatever he was sensing was coming from outside and he was unable to locate it. Close to dawn, the feeling disappeared with the sun.

He thought maybe being shipwrecked on an island for five years was story enough for everyone to give him more of a wide berth. Had he known it would earn him little more than Tommy wanting to take him out and show him the town again, he might have admitted to more, if only to earn himself a little more room to maneuver. Had he known that a day out would lead him to snapping the neck of a kidnapper while Tommy lay dazed and unconscious, he'd have let the Bratva send word ahead that he was coming, might have gone out last night and spread the word himself. It would have kept the underbelly of Starling City from rising up against him.

He let the dead man slip from between his hands, glaring up at the sky. He'd been back less than a day and yet he was already dropping bodies. He was starting to believe Waller and the Bratva. The thing he was best at in the world was killing.

"Sloppy." The voice startled him, and he pivoted, fingers clenching around a bow that wasn't there. "But better than I've ever seen you." The voice was familiar, too familiar with its cadence and accent, the way it boldly criticized and quietly complimented. It was proud, he realized in the moment between hearing and recognizing.

"Slade." The name was off his tongue before his eyes found the man standing a few feet off in cargo pants and a t-shirt, looking for all the world like just another person in the Glades.

"Kid." Oliver forced himself to relax, to ignore the corpse at his feet that was yet to start cooling. "Never took you for a man to kill in cold blood."

"You haven't known me in three years." The sentence was damning enough that Oliver could see Slade flinch, see the barely there flash of something that Oliver never would have seen back on the island.

"Who's fault is that?" It came out soft at first, almost a whisper that was carried on the wind. It was repeated twice more in rising pitch until Slade was shouting at him, taking three or four aggressive steps forward only to be cut off by an arrow embedded in the pavement a breath in front of him. Oliver and Slade both followed the arrow's path, settling on a familiar green hood, pulled down over an achingly well-memorized face.

"Shado," Oliver said, startled that Slade said it at the same time, with a reverence and a thanks that was unfamiliar in the tone.

"You both stayed together, then," Oliver said softly, a smile tugging up the corners of his mouth. "I'm glad." And he found, in that moment, that he was. Slade had loved Shado first, if Oliver was honest. Shado had gone to Oliver because he was the safer option, softer with less likelihood to reject her. He'd loved her sorely, and in the first few weeks after he watched them leave, Oliver found that she haunted his heart. In the time after, when Amanda Waller and the Bratva found some new evil to work into his soul, he found that it was Slade that was in his nightmares though, stoic, stern faced Slade who whispered things in a gravel voice that steeled him. "I never thought I'd see you here."

"We came to tell your family your story," Shado said. "I didn't think we'd ever see you again, but for more understandable reasons." The anger in her face didn't soak into her voice, though Oliver could feel it at his back, where Slade stood.

"I'm sorry," he said simply, shrugging one shoulder. He was sorry. He had let them think he was dead, but that was better than what really happened. Death, sometimes, was a mercy compared to what could die inside of you while you yet lived.

"You're sorry?" Slade asked behind him, voice a mix of confusion and incredulity. "You're sorry!" It was shouted this time, angry and seething and laced with something that Oliver had seen only once or twice on the island, had seen as they'd taken the Amazo. Shado's bow slid over to Slade, and Oliver pivoted in time to roll his head back against a fist that would have shattered his jaw had he not moved.

"Slade!" Shado shouted, and in a moment, they were fighting, Shado slipping around his strength, beating him with quickness and maneuvering. Oliver watched them a few moments, assuring himself that Slade's anger was fading now that he was facing Shado and not Oliver, and he disappeared into the cityscape.

A feeling he was unfamiliar with swam up in his stomach as he fled, using back alleys to circle back to the warehouse where Tommy was still bound. He was groggy, not really with it as Oliver came back and helped him free and to sit up. As Tommy came around and anxiety and fear and confusion crossed his face, Oliver realized what was in his own gut. He froze a moment, second guessing himself and comforting Tommy on auto-pilot.

Well, he thought as they helped him into the back of an ambulance. He hadn't felt anxious in years.


End file.
